THE UNIVERSITY DARY KANSAN
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23, 2007
NEWS
5A
WEATHER
New Orleans threatened by flooding
Steve Kendrick, left, James Moulton, center, and Greg Loushine push Helen Hutka's car out of the deep water in the Uptown area of New Orleans on Monday. Bands of heavy rain flooded streets and threatened homes and businesses in New Orleans an the surrounding suburbs.
Southeast still shy of annual average despite downpour
ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW ORLEANS — The Army Corps of Engineers closed a gate on a suburban canal as heavy rains lashed the flood-prone city, raising fears that climbing waters threatened to top the walls holding them back.
After more than 8 inches of rain fell on parts of New Orleans by late afternoon, Mayor Ray Nagin shut City Hall early, and schools also closed. People were asked to stay indoors until the flood potential subsided. More rain was expected overnight.
The Harvey Canal in Jefferson Parish was one of several waterways in the area placed under new safety guidelines after Hurricane Katrina's flood waters breached two New Orleans canals in August 2005, causing catastrophic flooding.
The corps has worked to strengthen the canal, about five miles from downtown, but engineers worried that water being driven into it might lead to flooding. The area around the canal includes homes and businesses.
Unlike the canal walls that broke during Katrina, the walls on the Harvey Canal are not considered at threat of being breached by rising waters, said Chris Accardo, the corps' operations chief.
"The gates were closed to minimize seepage and overtopping," he said.
Engineers want to be sure "that we don't put pressure" on the flood walls, said Amanda Jones, a corps spokeswoman.
Water accumulated quickly in some older neighborhoods, a reminder of the city's vulnerability to storms and reliance on a compi-
cated system of pumps and canals for drainage.
Water nearly got into the Prytania Theater in the Uptown neighborhood, a cultural icon and favorite refuge for Ignatius J. Reilly, the antihero in John Kennedy Toole's novel "A Confederacy of Dunces," said Eric
Ramstead, the theater's manager.
Robert Ricks, a lead forecaster with the National Weather Service in Slidell, said that a flood watch was extended to midnight Monday and that some areas could expect 10 inches or more of rain.
Despite the flooding potential,
the rain also offered relief to parts of Louisiana that have been abnormally dry. Until Monday's drenching, rainfall for New Orleans was about 11 inches below normal for the year.
The scattered showers and thunderstorms also came as a blessing to other drought-stricken areas of
the Southeast on Monday. Still, climatologists said it would take more than a few scattered storms to pull the region out of a record drought.
Rainfall in Atlanta is almost 17 inches below normal for the year, and state officials have warned that a north Georgia reservoir that supplies more than 3 million people with water could be depleted within three months.
Almost one-third of the Southeast is covered by an "exceptional" drought — the worst drought category.
》 ACCIDENT
Van flips over on highway; 5 killed,11 others injured
ASSOCIATED PRESS
INDIANAPOLIS — A tire blow-out may have caused a van carrying passengers from an Amish community to flip over on a highway, killing three children and two adults, police said Monday. Eleven others were injured in the crash.
Police said no other vehicles were involved Sunday when the southbound van veered out of control on Interstate 69, entered a grassy median and overturned, coming to rest in the northbound lanes near Muncie, about 50 miles northeast of Indianapolis. The roof of the vehicle was torn away.
Witnesses saw the rear left tire on the van blow out before the crash occurred, and police said in a statement that a preliminary investigation of the tires confirmed those observations.
It was not clear at first how many people had been riding in the van, as survivors gave conflicting counts of 15, 16 or 17 passengers, Indiana State Police Sgt. Rod Russell said. Police and other rescuers searched for additional injured people until it was clear all people in the van were accounted for.
"It's controlled chaos, is what it is, when you have a situation like this," Russell said.
The victims hailed from Amish communities in Indiana, police said. Troopers believed that the van may have been taking people home after a church function.
Amish people generally shun modern conveniences but sometimes enlist non-Amish as drivers.
reopen until more than four hours after the crash. Southbound lanes reopened about two hours after the crash.
Traffic in both directions was stopped as authorities used the highway to land medical helicopters. Northbound lanes of I-69 did not
Susie Ingras saw the crash and went to help the victims.
"We got up there, and we had three bodies that were just right by us," she said. "It's just heartbreaking, especially them being so young."
The crash occurred about 20 miles from the site of an April 2006 collision between a Taylor University van and a semi-trailer rig that killed four students and a university employee.
The crash resulted in widespread attention after an identity mixup in which a woman, originally believed to have died in the accident, turned out to be just injured.
In April, four Amish riding in a pickup were among eight people killed in a crash on the Indiana Toll Road.
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